So what is the difference between over-easy, over-hard, etc.?
Sunny side up: when you have you happy little yolk beaming there on the top. Usually ends up runny because it gets less direct heat.
Over easy: You take the sunny side up egg and flip it over so the yolk gets more heat. But the end result should be that the yolk is still runny enough to dip your toast, but is more “cooked.”
Over hard: Yolk has more time to cook and isn’t runny. Not toast dipping for you.
It all depends on how you like your yolk (texture and taste).
To the OP:
Hm. Come to think of it, the Hispanic side of my family almost always has eggs scrambled. Up until I was 8 I thought eggs were always scrambled, until I saw my (non-Hispanic) father cook himself a fried egg.
Never asked why the penchant for scrambled eggs, and I doubt anyone in my family would really know. I suspect and this is a total WAG, that - in my family at least - it was because my Nana had four kids (good Catholic Spanish family). Four kids + husband + self at breakfast? Much easier and faster to make one big pan of scrambled eggs and feed everyone all at once than to fiddle around with 1-2 freid eggs per person taking up space in the pan…
Still, my mom, aunt and uncles all tend to get their eggs scrambled out of force of habit. That’s how they’ve always eaten them. I feel like a visionary when I order eggs over-medium.
I can’t speak for Cyn’sfather, but I find it difficult to get a fried egg where the white is done right. Usually, the egg has been on a grill or in a pan that’s too hot, resulting in burnt brown edges and/or a cellophane-like skin on the white. It makes me gag. Even scrambled eggs are often done poorly (actually a “chopped omelet” from occasional stirring instead of scrambled from constant stirring), but at least I can eat them.
What about what I called the “great beer divide?”
I lived in Las Cruces for several years. Whenever I saw a Hispanic (Mexican-American or Mexican national) go into a liquor store, I could predict with about 95% certainty that he’s leave with Budweiser under his arm. Whenever I saw an Anglo cowboy/western-type walk in, he or she would always leave with Coors or Coors Light.
To tell you the truth, I didn’t understand the difference until recently, myself, and I’m 30. I thought that over=flip it and easy=don’t break the yolk. At home it was always just “fried eggs”. Over medium is exactly what I want.
When one orders huevos con jamon in Mexico, you will get scrambled eggs with diced ham. As far as scrambled vs. fried eggs, I really haven’t noticed a general prefernce for one over the other. Fried are commonly ordered as huevos rancheros, huevos en rabo de mestiza or huevos motuleños. Chilaquiles can come montados which means they are topped by a fried egg unless specifically ordered scrambled.
Scrambled eggs usually have something scrambled in such as huevos con jamon o tocino, a la mexicana, con machaca(jerked beef) or just about anything else you feel like adding to the mixture.
For the record, here are the “standard” definitions for different kinds of fried eggs:
Sunny Side Up: cooked on one side only; white should be mostly solid, except for a bit of liquid white around the yolks; yolks runny and cool, but unbroken
Basted: like Sunny Side Up, but usually covered with a lid and steamed to lightly cook the tops of the eggs
Over Easy: cooked on both sides; yolk runny, cool and unbroken; runny whites around yolks
In Washington state, restaurants are required to include a warning on the menu that ‘sunny side up’ and ‘over easy’ eggs are considered to be undercooked, and therefore potentially hazardous.
Over Medium: cooked on both sides; yolks unbroken and warm but still runny; whites completely cooked
Over Well: cooked both sides, yolks unbroken and cooked hard; whites cooked hard; (because the yolks are unbroken, this style of egg takes way longer to cook than other styles, and usually results in browning on the outsides of the eggs)
Over Hard: like Over Well, but yolks are broken; yolks and whites cooked hard; much quicker than Over Well; these eggs sometimes referred to as “stepped on”
And elmwood: Here, too - Budweiser. If they smoke, it’s Marlboro Box.
You’re correct about the pan or grill being too hot on the fried eggs you’ve described. I prefer to cook eggs in pans rather than on the grill. Ideally, a kitchen should have enough eggs pans to allow the cook to rotate through all of them so that each pan has time to cool between uses. Unfortunately, restaurant owners are notorious cheapskates when it comes to supplying the kitchen. I’ve worked in places where the dining room was remodeled three times before the owner would buy a new spatula. I’ve been known, in the middle of a rush, to carry all the egg pans to the sink and run them under cold water to cool them down.
And on scrambled eggs, you’re correct. The problem is mainly that the cook has so many things going at once that he doesn’t have time to stand in one place stirring the eggs. So, you get the “chopped omelet” effect. But you gave one clue to something that all breakfast cooks learn quickly: people who order scrambled eggs are the least likely to complain about their eggs. So we concentrate on making sure that the over easy eggs are done properly, and scrambled eggs don’t get as much attention.
Oh, and for the record, I will only eat eggs that are scrambled or hard boiled. I can’t stand runny yolks, and hard-fried eggs always seem to have an unappealing metallic taste.
CBEscapee, what are huevos motuleños? Is that what one woman called the dish that is called huevos rancheros in other parts of Mexico?
Ok, I’ll bite. What does it tell you?
For those who don’t know already, the fact that huevos means both “eggs” and “testicles” gives you the drift.
Huevos motuleños are similar to rancheros in that both are fried eggs on top of a softened tortilla and smothered in a sauce. But the former have refried beans on the tortilla and the sauce is made different. Crumbled chorizo and peas being the main difference.
Well, I had to go to my wife for this one, despite my silly conjecture above.
Mexican families are traditionally large compared to “typical” in the US. So… it’s a lot easier to cook up a batch of scrambled than several individual portions of fried, like Eats_Crayons said. But aside from that, say you’re feeding 10: that’s twenty eggs assuming you give everyone two. You could scramble 12, let 'em get fluffy, toss in some salsa, let 'em eat a bolillo, and no one’s the wiser. It’s economy. My wife also says that in her grandmother’s day, you’d be able to always have leftovers for a while, so you can offer something to the milkman or the lp man or whoever happens to drop by.
Thingol: Quieres passar la lengua por mis juevos? No thanks. 
And CBEscapee, yo nunca aruinaria mis chilequiles con huevos! They’re good enough with tomatilla salsa (better than red) and chicken.
Cada quien su gusto, Balthi! I don’t think there is a “better” when it comes to the different sauces. This morning I had some tortilla chips (totopos) scrambled with eggs and smothered in a salsa for huevos rancheros with extra refried beans.
Chorizo and peas? I’ve never seen that. When I ordered huevos rancheros once, it was missing a key ingredient, I believe it was the tortilla. The woman told me that what I really wanted was huevos [something that sounded like motuleños]. There seems to be a lot of variation in huevos rancheros.
hm, ex pro chef here, and I have noticed the same sort of thing. men in a group of men order one way, but if in a date situation, they eat to impress the woman - either huge portions, more heart healthy…food faddishly.
My preferences are real poached eggs, i get off on watching the swirlies=) though soft boiled is ok…i like mushing it all together and spreading it on toast. I also love coddled eggs [http://www.recipe-ideas.co.uk/recipes-6/Coddled%20Eggs.htm] and make them if I have a lot of people for breakfast. Though you can make these also on a bed of cooked black beans, and with salsa or on a disc of polenta with a layer of smoked salmon under the egg, and garnished with caviare after cooking=)
I have also noticed that men alone wil order plainer foods, and with a woman in the party will order fancier foods - eg huevos rancheros in an all male group and eggs benedict if with a woman=)
Rancheros gotta have the tortilla! I think you’ll probably find more variations of huevos rancheros (gringo-ized versions) in the USA than down here.